GIORDANO, verily thy Pencil's skill
Hath here portrayed with Nature's happiest grace The fair Endymion couched on Latmos-hill; And Dian gazing on the Shepherd's face In rapture, yet suspending her embrace, As not unconscious with what power the thrill Of her most timid touch his sleep would chase, And, with his sleep, that beauty calm and still. O may this work have found its last retreat Here in a mountain-Bard's secure abode, One to whom, yet a School-boy, Cynthia showed A face of love which he in love would greet, Fixed, by her smile, upon some rocky seat; Or lured along where green-wood paths he trod. RYDAL MOUNT, 1846.
WHO but is pleased to watch the moon on high Travelling where she from time to time enshrouds Her head, and nothing loth her Majesty Renounces, till among the scattered clouds One with its kindling edge declares that soon Will reappear before the uplifted eye A Form as bright, as beautiful a moon, To glide in open prospect through clear sky. Pity that such a promise e'er should prove False in the issue, that yon seeming space Of sky, should be in truth the steadfast face
Of a cloud flat and dense, through which must
(By transit not unlike man's frequent doom) The wanderer lost in more determined gloom!
WHERE lies the truth? has Man, in wisdom's creed
A pitiable doom; for respite brief
A care more anxious, or a heavier grief? Is he ungrateful, and doth little heed God's bounty, soon forgotten; or indeed, Must Man, with labour born, awake to sorrow When flowers rejoice and Larks with rival speed Spring from their nests to bid the Sun good morrow?
They mount for rapture as their songs proclaim Warbled in hearing both of earth and sky; But o'er the contrast wherefore heave a sigh? Like those aspirants let us soar-our aim, Through life's worst trials, whether shocks or
A happier, brighter, purer Heaven than theirs.
ILLUSTRATED BOOKS AND NEWSPAPERS. DISCOURSE was deemed Man's noblest attribute, And written words the glory of his hand; Then followed Printing with enlarged command For thought-dominion vast and absolute For spreading truth, and making love expand. Now prose and verse sunk into disrepute Must lacquey a dumb Art that best can suit The taste of this once-intellectual Land. A backward movement surely have we here, From manhood-back to childhood; for the ageBack towards caverned life's first rude career. Avaunt this vile abuse of pictured page! Must eyes be all in all, the tongue and ear Nothing Heaven keep us from a lower stage!
THE unremitting voice of nightly streams That waste so oft, we think, its tuneful powers, If neither soothing to the worm that gleams Through dewy grass, nor small birds hushed in bowers,
Nor unto silent leaves and drowsy flowers,- That voice of unpretending harmony
(For who what is shall measure by what seems To be, or not to be,
Or tax high Heaven with prodigality?) Once not a healing influence that can creep Into the human breast, and mix with sleep To regulate the motion of our dreams For kindly issues-as through every clime Was felt near murmuring brooks in earliest time; As at this day, the rudest swains who dwell Where torrents roar, or hear the tinkling knell Of water-breaks, with grateful heart could tell.
I KNOW an aged Man constrained to dwell In a large house of public charity, Where he abides, as in a Prisoner's cell, With numbers near, alas! no company.
When he could creep about, at will, though poor And forced to live on alms, this old Man fed A Redbreast, one that to his cottage door Came not, but in a lane partook his bread.
There, at the root of one particular tree, An easy seat this worn-out Labourer found While Robin pecked the crumbs upon his knee Laid one by one, or scattered on the ground.
Dear intercourse was theirs, day after day; What signs of mutual gladness when they met! Think of their common peace, their simple play, The parting moment and its fond regret.
Months passed in love that failed not to fulfil, In spite of season's change, its own demand, By fluttering pinions here and busy bill; There by caresses from a tremulous hand.
Thus in the chosen spot a tie so strong Was formed between the solitary pair, That when his fate had housed him mid a throng The Captive shunned all converse proffered there.
Wife, children, kindred, they were dead and gone; But, if no evil hap his wishes crossed, One living Stay was left, and on that one Some recompense for all that he had lost.
O that the good old Man had power to prove, By message sent through air or visible token, That still he loves the Bird, and still must love; That friendship lasts though fellowship is broken!
AFFECTIONS lose their objects; Time brings forth No successors; and, lodged in memory, If love exist no longer, it must die,- Wanting accustomed food must pass from earth, Or never hope to reach a second birth. This sad belief, the happiest that is left To thousands, share not thou; howe'er bereft, Scorned, or neglected, fear not such a dearth. Though poor and destitute of friends thou art, Perhaps the sole survivor of thy race, One to whom Heaven assigns that mournful part The utmost solitude of age to face, Still shall be left some corner of the heart Where Love for living Thing can find a place.
How beautiful the Queen of Night, on high Her way pursuing among scattered clouds, Where, ever and anon, her head she shrouds Hidden from view in dense obscurity. But look, and to the watchful eye A brightening edge will indicate that soon We shall behold the struggling Moon Break forth,-again to walk the clear blue sky.
WHY should we weep or mourn,- Angelic boy, For such thou wert ere from our sight removed, Holy, and ever dutiful-beloved
From day to day with never-ceasing joy, And hopes as dear as could the heart employ In aught to earth pertaining? Death has proved His might, nor less his mercy, as behoved- Death conscious that he only could destroy The bodily frame. That beauty is laid low To moulder in a far-off field of Rome; But Heaven is now, blest Child, thy Spirit's home: When such choice communion which we know, Is felt, thy Roman-burial place will be Surely a sweet remembrancer of Thee.
ACQUITTAL of the Bishops, 32 Address to a Child during a boisterous Winter's Evening, 55
to my Infant Daughter, 130 to the Scholars of the Village School of, 433
from the Spirit of Cocker- mouth Castle, 349 Admonition, 197
Affections. Poems founded on the, 68 Affliction of Margaret. The, 84 Afflictions of England, 326 After-thought, 258
(another poem), 292
Airey-Force Valley, 142 Aix-la-Chapelle, 236
His Descendants, 317
Alice Fell, or Poverty, 56
American Episcopacy, 329 Tradition, 289
Anecdote for Fathers, 60
Animal Tranquillity and Decay, 429 Anticipation, October 1803, 240
of leaving School. Con-
clusion of a poem in, 1 Apology (Eccles. Sonnets), 315 (another poem), 323 (Punishment of Death), 391 (Tour in Scotland), 341
Applethwaite. At, 198 Aquapendente. Musings near, 270 Armenian Lady's Love. The, 101 Artegal and Elidure, 72
Aspects of Christianity in America,
Beautiful Picture. Upon the sight of Celandine. To the same Flower, 120 a, &c., 199 Beggars, 147
CALAIS. Composed by the Sea-side near, 236
(another poem), 236
Fishwomen at, 255
Cambridge and the Alps, 474 Canute, 317
Canute and Alfred, on the Sea-shore,
Captivity; Mary Queen of Scots, 208 Casual Incitements, 314 Catechising, 330
Cathedrals, &c., 333
Catholic Cantons.
of the, 258
Cave of Staffa, 355
Flowers, &c., 355 To the Small, 119
(another poem), 428 Celebrated Event in Ancient History.
Cenotaph. Frances Fermor, 432
Character. A, 362
Character of the Happy Warrior, 371 Characteristics of a Child, 55
Charles I. To the close of the Troubles, &c., 319
Chaucer. Selections from; modern- ised, 416
Chichely, Archbishop, to Hen. V., 321 Child. To a; written in her Album, 404
Childhood. Poems referring to, 54 and School-Time, 445 Childless Father. The, $6 Church, to be erected, 333
Churchyard among the Mountains. The, 580
Cistercian Monastery, 319
Clerical Integrity, 327
Clouds. To the, 179 Cockermonth.
On the sight of Open Prospect, 288
Our Lady of the Snow, 259
March. Written in; at the foot of Oxford, May 30, 1820, 210
Brother's Water, 146
Marriage Ceremony. The, 331
of a Friend. On the Eve of the, 201
Mary, Queen of Scots, 80
Matron of Jedborough and her Hus-
May Morning. At Rydal, on, 279 Ode, composed on, 381 On a, 214 Memorial; Lake of Thun, 258 Memory, 376
A, in Oxfordshire, 211
Pass of Killicranky, 226 Pass of Kirkstone, 166 Pastor. The, 570 Pastoral Character, 329 Patriotic Sympathies, 327
of Raisley Calvert. To the, Paulinus, 315
Men of Kent. To the, 240 MICHAEL; A Pastoral Poem, 96 Michael Angelo. From the Italian, of, 201
Being, 201 Miscellaneous Poems, 392 Sonnets, 197 Missions and Travels, 316 Monasteries. Dissolution of the, 322 Same subject, 322 Monastery of Old Bangor, 314 Monastic Power. Abuse of, 322 Voluptuousness, 322 Monks and Schoolmen, 319 Moon. To the; Cumberland, 346 To the; Rydal, 347 Morning Exercise. A, 113 Mother's Return. The, 55 Mutability, 332
NAMING of Places. Poems on the, 108 Namur and Liege, Between, 256
Pillar of Trajan. The, 280
Place of Burial. A; in Scotland, 336 Places of Worship, 329
Plain of Donnerdale. The, 289 Planet Venus. To the, 216 (another poem), 340 Plea for Authors. A, 216 the Historian, 274 Poet and the caged Turtledove. The, 127
Poet's Dream. The, 63
Epitaph. A, 364
Point at Issue. The, 324 Poor Robin (Wild Geranium), 39′′ Popery. Revival of, 324 Power of Music, 145
« AnteriorContinuar » |